Polycephaly is a platform and project exploring art's (in)ability to 'do' politics, as opposed to being or appearing political. While art is evidently a sphere distinct from law, governance, science, philosophy, and so on, it has the ability to slip quietly past field boundaries, and mine other disciplines with rigour. This peculiar agency allows art to produce knowledge and achieve effects not necessarily possible within individual disciplines. What are the effects, ethics and limits of this? In examining how the political is de/activated through artistic and curatorial practice, we seek to understand and analyse its strategies, in order to speculate on how art might feel adequate, even powerful, as a response to the demands of the present.

The site will grow throughout 2019 and 2020, as we publish contributions from artists, curators and writers.